updated_at,reviewed_on,context,comments,theme,id,text,provenance,created_at,work_id,metaphor,dictionary
2010-06-10 18:47:55 UTC,2010-06-10,"","•Correct category? Borders on 'Weather'....[I've added it, BMP 6/10/2010]
•Lonsdale gives G.'s source for these lines: ""A Voyage to South-America ... by Don George Juan, and Don Antonio de Ulloa (1758) i 231. Cp. also Young, Night Thoughts ii (ad fin): 'As some tall tower, or lofty mountain's brow / Detains the sun illustrious from its height; / While rising vapours and descending shades / With damps and darkness drown the specious vale...' Parallels in Lucan, Statius, Claudian, Chapelain, Chaulieu have also bee suggested"" (p. 684).","",14303,"At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
(ll. 177-192, pp. 683-4)",Reading and HDIS (Poetry),2003-11-27 00:00:00 UTC,5328,"""But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. / As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, / Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, / Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, / Eternal sunshine settles on its head.""",""
2011-03-05 22:40:39 UTC,,Section VI. Part I.,INTEREST,"",18195,"It seems, indeed, certain, that first appearances are here, as usual, extremely deceitful, and that it is more difficult, in a speculative way, to resolve into self-love the merit, which we ascribe to the selfish virtues above-mentioned, than that even of the social virtues, justice and beneficence. For this latter purpose, we need but say, that whatever conduct promotes the good of the community is loved, praised, and esteemed by the community, on account of that utility and interest, of which every one partakes: And though this affection and regard be, in reality, gratitude, not self-love, yet a distinction, even of this obvious nature, may not readily be made by superficial reasoners; and there is room, at least, to support the cavil and dispute for a moment. But as qualities, which tend only to the utility of their possessor, without any reference to us, or to the community, are yet esteemed and valued; by what theory or system can we account for this sentiment from self-love, or deduce it from that favourite origin? There seems here a necessity for confessing that the happiness and misery of others are not spectacles entirely indifferent to us; but that the view of the former, whether in its causes or effects, like sun-shine or the prospect of well-cultivated plains, (to carry our pretensions no higher), communicates a secret joy and satisfaction; the appearance of the latter, like a lowering cloud or barren landscape, throws a melancholy damp over the imagination. And this concession being once made, the difficulty is over; and a natural unforced interpretation of the phenomena of human life will afterwards, we may hope, prevail among all speculative enquirers.
(pp. 243-4)",Reading,2011-03-05 22:37:06 UTC,4873,"""There seems here a necessity for confessing that the happiness and misery of others are not spectacles entirely indifferent to us; but that the view of the former, whether in its causes or effects, like sun-shine or the prospect of well-cultivated plains, (to carry our pretensions no higher), communicates a secret joy and satisfaction; the appearance of the latter, like a lowering cloud or barren landscape, throws a melancholy damp over the imagination.""",""
2013-07-02 15:37:50 UTC,,Book II,"","",21409,"XLV
'Then waken from long lethargy to life
'The seeds of happiness, and powers of thought;
'Then jarring appetites forego their strife,
'A strife by ignorance to madness wrought.
'Pleasure by savage man is dearly bought
'With fell revenge, lust that defies controul,
'With gluttony and death. The mind untaught
'Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl;
'As Phebus to the world, is Science to the soul.
(Bk II, p. 38, ll. 397-405)",C-H Lion,2013-07-02 15:37:50 UTC,7499,"""The mind untaught / 'Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl; / 'As Phebus to the world, is Science to the soul.""",""
2013-11-17 17:12:25 UTC,,"",Added. Had skipped this verse paragraph on first reading.,"",23223,"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing
Thy wisdom tempered with the milder ray
Of soft humanity, and kindness bland:
So wide its influence, that the bright beams
Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge,
Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed,
Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night--
On me it fell, and cheered my joyless heart.
Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light
To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects,
And fain would push the heavenly stranger back;
She loathes the cranny which admits the day;
Confused, afraid of the intruding guest;
Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam,
Which to herself her native darkness shows.
The effort rude to quench the cheering flame
Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze
With sullen envy, and admiring pride,
Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair
Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense,
And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam.
Oft as I trod my native wilds alone,
Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die;
The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped
By liberal converse, rude ideas strove
Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died.
Thus rust the Mind's best powers. Yon starry orbs,
Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves,
Eye-wasting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills
Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view;
All those, with beauteous imagery, awaked
My ravished soul to ecstasy untaught,
To all the transport the rapt sense can bear;
But all expired, for want of powers to speak;
All perished in the mind as soon as born,
Erased more quick than cyphers on the shore,
O'er which cruel waves, unheedful roll.
Such timid rapture as young Edwin seized,
When his lone footsteps on the Sage obtrude,
Whose noble precept charmed his wondering.
Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul,
When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed,
Opes all the glories of the mental world,
Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune
The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk
Of feeble fancy, bid idea live,
Woo the abstracted spirit form its cares,
And gently guide her to scenes of peace.
Mine was than balm, and mine the grateful heart,
Which breathes its thanks in rough, but timid strains.
(ll. 30-79, pp. 395-6)",Reading,2013-11-17 17:12:25 UTC,5612,"""O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night.""",""